Talking about your research

Introduction

Very important skill
- Talk every chance you get
Way outside my comfort zone
- Rely on advice from the experts

Ben Stein movie scene

YouTube video clip of Ben Stein

“How to Give a Great Talk” Nic Fleming, Nature 2018 (1/6)

First page of Fleming article

“How to Give a Great Talk” Nic Fleming, Nature 2018 (2/6)

Use vivid words to paint a picture
- delightful
- disturbing
- puzzling

“How to Give a Great Talk” Nic Fleming, Nature 2018 (3/6)

Use vocal variety
- Volume
- Pitch
- Tone

Notice how Ben Stein talks in a monotone. It could be worse, but he sticks with the same volume, only has slight variations in pitch, and

Different parts of your talk need different voices. Use a louder volume (carefully) to build excitement or to convey a need for action. Use a softer volume when you want to draw your audience in. Use a higher pitch when raising questions and a lower pitch when making forceful statements.

Use a higher pitch to raise questions. “Why do we have such poor health care in the United States?” Use a lower pitch to convey concern. “There’s a serious problem with health care today.”

What is tone exactly. The best example is a phrase that almost every child has heard from their mother: “Don’t talk to me in that tone of voice.” Tone is the emotion behind your voice. The mother was noting anger or contempt in the voice of the child. Unless you are a natural actor, you will have difficulty with tone. But make an effort. Think about the emotion you want to convey: happiness, anger, or curiosity. Use not just your words, but your tone to help create that mood. You don’t have to be perfect at this, and any effort to convey emotion in the tone of your voice will help tremendously.

“How to Give a Great Talk” Nic Fleming, Nature 2018 (4/6)

Insert small pauses
- Gets your audience to think
- Create emphasis
- Allows your message to sink in.
- Creates tension

Another very important tip is to insert pauses. Pauses often get your audience to think. This is especially helpful after questions. Notice how Ben Stein never gave his students a chance to answer any of his questions. He used the same pace throughout the lecture.

Pauses … can … emphasize … certain … points.

Just from a practical perspective, an occasional pause allows people to process what you just said. You don’t want to throw too much information at them all at once, and a brief pause from time to time can really help.

Pauses are also useful at times to create tension. Stop talking and people start wondering what you are going to say next. That’s a trick that job interviewers use. They’ll ask a negative question like “What’s your greatest weakness?” You might have an answer ready that shows that you are human without illustrating anything too negative. But watch out. The smart interviewer will pause after your first answer. The silence will make you nervous. Do I need to mention a second weakness? Don’t fall for this. Toss in a second weakness and maybe a third to fill in the awkward space. All of a sudden, you’ve admitted to things that you should never have done in a job interview.

Silence in a talk can work the same way. It creates tension and unease. There are times when you can use this to your advantage. For example, you are talking about ethical conduct of research. Say something like “All researchers have flirted with unethical behavior.” Then stop. People will start to squirm and feel uncomfortable. Don’t pause forever, but once you’ve provided this level of discomfort, use it to emphasize why rules of conduct for research are so important.

“How to Give a Great Talk” Nic Fleming, Nature 2018 (5/6)

Rehearse
- Prepare, practice, and perfect.
- Get feedback
- Practice in an environment similar to your talk

“How to Give a Great Talk” Nic Fleming, Nature 2018 (6/6)

Ensure you are within the time limit
- Plan on fixed amount of time per slide
  - This gives a rough estimate on your slide count.
- Time every rehearsal
  - Cut relentlessly, if needed
  - Develop a rhythm to help with timing
- Give yourself a margin of error

The worst sin you can commit in scientific presentations is going over your allotted time limit. The audience will hate you for it, because they have a busy conference and don’t want your talk to interfere with their schedule.

But there’s another problem with long talks. Every other speaker in your session will hate you with an unbridled passion if you take too long. You are cheating them out of their time just so you can get more attention for your topic.

First budget a certain amount of time for each slide. It may be 30 seconds to 2 minutes, but do a rough calculation so that you don’t have too many slides. If your rough calculation is off, cut back on the number of slides. But don’t do this by combining two slides together.

Second, you will never know how long it takes to speak about your topic until you rehearse. Keep time while you rehearse. If you are way off with the first rehearsal, cut out major sections of your talk. Be relentless about this. Better to leave your audience wanting more than irritating them by giving them more than they asked for.

If your first rehearsal is close, see if a second or third practice will cut things a bit. Normally, practice will give you a good rhythm and that can help make things fit better in your time limit.

Don’t stop rehearsing until you have your talk a bit under the time limit. Give yourself a margin of error. Nervousness in front of an actual audience could draw things out a bit longer than your rehearsals. Also expect a bit of lost time during the transition from one speaker to another.

If you end up finishing a bit early, the other speakers will love you for it. Never feel bad about failing to fill out every allotted minute you have been given.

Preparing your slides

Variety of programs
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Adobe pdf
- Apple Keynote
- Prezi
- reveal.js

“Points of View. PowerPoint in the Classroom” (1/5)

First page of PowerPoint article

“Points of View. PowerPoint in the Classroom” (2/5)

Example of a bad PowerPoint slide

“Points of View. PowerPoint in the Classroom” (3/5)

Speaker notes view from PowerPoint

“Points of View. PowerPoint in the Classroom” (4/5)

PowerPointlessness
- Transitions, sounds, other special effects
- Distract the viewer from your main message
- Distract you from more important elements

“Points of View. PowerPoint in the Classroom” (5/5)

PowerPoint Master Slide
- Template to insure consistent appearance
- Allows branding.

UMKC templates (1/7)

UMKC PowerPoint template

UMKC templates (2/7)

UMKC PowerPoint template

UMKC templates (3/7)

UMKC PowerPoint template

UMKC templates (4/7)

UMKC PowerPoint template

UMKC templates (5/7)

UMKC PowerPoint template

UMKC templates (6/7)

UMKC PowerPoint template

UMKC templates (7/7)

UMKC PowerPoint template

Do you really need slides? (1/4)

Front cover of The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint

Do you really need slides? (2/4)

First page of Peter Norvig’s PowerPoint satire

Peter Norvig has a satirical slide show up about Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. This is one of the most famous speeches in U.S. History. I want to read it to you right now, because it is so well done.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”

Note: I might stop here, or I could read the rest of the speech.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Peter Norvig imagines what would happen today if Abraham Lincoln gave the same address and used PowerPoint to “enhance” his talk.

Do you really need slides? (3/4)

Second slide from Peter Norvig’s PowerPoint satire

Do you really need slides? (4/4)

Two alternatives to slides
- Stand in front of your audience and talk
- Use a handout
Counterpoint: why I am using slides today
- My customers demand PowerPoint
- Needed for remote presentation
- Slides serve to show structure

So if you don’t use slides, what should you do?

First, there is nothing wrong with just standing in front of your audience and talking. Abraham Lincoln did a pretty good job doing this at Gettysburg. It is not an easy task quite honestly, but I have done it. You end up looking at your audience a lot more if there is no PowerPoint slide up on the projector behind you.

When I do skip the slides, I almost always prepare a handout and pass it out to the audience ahead of time. The criticism of using handouts is that people will read your handout instead of listening to your talk. There is nothing wrong with this, other than an affront, possibly to your ego. If people read your handout during the talk and they learn everything they need to know from the handout, then your talk was a success.

Having done this for many years, I have returned to using PowerPoint for my talks.

The bullet points is not the point that you are currently talking about. It is the bullet points just before and just after the bullet point you are talking about. Having a series of bullet points reminds the audience where the speaker was just a few seconds or minutes ago and where the speaker will be a few seconds or minutes from now. If your bullets follow a logical sequence, seeing them all up on the screen reinforces that logical sequence.

Conclusion

Use vocal variety
Rehearse
Stay within your time limits